Public records study needs completion

June 19, 2007

The current flap over whether all state employees' salaries should be open demonstrates the need for Attorney General Larry Long's public records project. In fact, as we have said many times before, all public records should be open unless a very specific reason requires them to be closed. The South Dakota Legislature really missed the boat this year when it rejected a bill that would have done just that. Long said at the time that he wasn't giving up. And he hasn't. We're glad - especially because it looks like it's time to kick that open government work into high gear. Long's plan was to revive a task force - originally created in 2001 - that helped him make other recommendations about open government. Its purpose was to study open meetings and public records issues. According to the attorney general's Web site, he has done just that and the group is comprised of people representing state and local governmental entities, the media and the business community. Earlier this spring, the attorney general said he felt that the Legislature would be more willing to listen to recommendations if the task force can come to consensus on a common set of guidelines. We certainly hope so. Perhaps Sen. Nancy Turbak, D-Watertown, said it best when she stated that government officials are sometimes too inclined to treat records as confidential and about what happens when the public is shut out. "In the end, it undermines the faith people have in government," she said, during a committee hearing earlier this year. So true. Re-enter the issue of making salaries of state employees public information. This should be a no-brainer. Taxpayer dollars pay those salaries. Taxpayers have a right to know. The issue came to light because the Sioux Falls Argus Leader's repeated requests - over the past four months - for a list of state employees and their salaries were rebuffed by many South Dakota officials. Disclosure isn't a problem in many surrounding states - like North Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa - and, according to an Argus Leader survey, at least a dozen states even post this information on the Internet for full public access. Not so in South Dakota, though three South Dakota state government offices - the Public Utilities Commission, the school and public lands office and the auditor's office - should be recognized because they did release their staff lists and salaries when asked by the newspaper. South Dakota officials say the law does not require that a list of employees, their job titles and salaries be kept. Therefore, they say, such information is not open to the public, because the open records law says only those records that are required by law to be kept are open to the public. Bunk. Sen. Dave Knudson, R-Sioux Falls, rightly said, “If the public's money is paying it, it seems to me the public is entitled to know the information - who and how much they are paying.” The framers of the Declaration of Independence would have absolutely agreed. That document clearly states "Governments are instituted among men, deriving their powers from the consent of the governed...” We all fall under the category "the governed." We all grant our elected officials the power to lead and we deserve transparency in our government - it is an essential component of giving our consent. Government truly is "We the people ...” and we deserve - and reserve - the right to know.